As He Lay Still
by Teir's'Ffalenn
Summary: SPOILERS for the manga and chapter 115 'You know...of all the people I'd have expected to greet me here, you would have been one of my last choices.' One-shot


The rain hammered relentlessly. The river nearby had swollen and the fast flowing currents lashed against the banks, spurred on by the heavy winds that snagged hard tangles into the Commander of the Survey Corps' already unruly brown hair and tore at the cloaks of the small party that had traced the source of the brief flare of light that had lit up the grey skies overhead not long before.

The fierce elements no longer bothered Hange now as she took in the scene before her: the littered splinters of wood across the drenched grasses from the broken cart, the horse nearby with its seared skin and burnt scraps from its leather harness, the thunder spear lying forlorn in the mud that she knew must have caused all of this destruction. The ground around the slender piece of metal was a churned mess of blackened mud and water and charred grass. She glanced around for any clue that might tell her what could have happened here, to know if anyone might have been involved, and there she first saw him, crumpled on the riverside, his slightly built frame half hidden by the folds of rumpled cloak blending in to the greenery. She knew it was him already as she covered the distance between them like lightning and fell to her knees beside the scouts captain, oblivious to the freezing slush that immediately seeped through the knees of her trousers and stained the white fabric. Gently as she could she untangled the cloak to pull him towards her, her question a snapped demand of desperation, 'hey! Are you alive!?'

The silent plea on her lips for him to respond died almost instantly as she finally flicked his hood back from his normally hardened features, so at odds on a deceptively youthful face, and saw the state he was in. She could have wept then and there if she hadn't gone numb to the sight of the blood that streaked in water driven rivulets down his skin, for the heavy gash that tore across his face and one eye, for the matted strands of once fine black hair plastered to his scarlet stained forehead. His clothes were as scorched as the grasses, thoroughly wet through and dirtied to the point that she almost laughed hysterically for the expression she knew he'd pull if he could see himself right now. His frightening stillness compared to the deadly creature that never could settle fully in life left her feeling desolate; without his steady presence in the world and sarcastic humour and blunt honesty, not to mention his strength and power, what was left? If someone had managed to take the breath from Captain Levi, what hope was left to the rest of them? There was no movement to his chest, no pulse through his wrist. And yet, despite his chilled skin, she was sure she could still feel warmth, somewhere deep down. She hardly dared to wonder: did he still have a chance? Not in her present company, that was for sure. Already they stood debating whether to shoot him in the head to be sure.

'He's dead,' she told them without emotion, 'let him be. I can tell you for a fact, you don't walk away from a thunder spear when it goes off right next to you. Just look at him, what more do you need to see?'

'He's survived bad odds set against him before,' Floch insisted from behind, 'let me check his pulse to be sure.'

Hange gripped him tighter, fully prepared to defend him to the last when it happened. Another blinding light mere feet away that distracted them all and took their attention from the commander with the captain in her arms as they took in the figure that appeared to them; formed and healed and alive, Zeke himself stood before them. Zeke would not leave Levi's fate to chance. He would want to be sure that humanity's strongest soldier could no longer stand in his way.

Hange took the risk.

The moment their backs were turned she threw one limp arm across her shoulders and heaved the captain's body up against her side. He weighed nearly nothing which made it all the more easy to launch herself into the river and haul him away as fast as her own tired muscles could go.

They shot at her when they realised. Hardly thinking anymore she automatically shielded his body with her own and in desperate flight, she took a breath and plunged them beneath the surface.

_Cold. He was cold. As though he had plunged headfirst into icy waters that had soaked him through and chilled him down to his very bones. That was all he could register as he stirred against what felt like wood flooring beneath him. Confused and aching from his uncomfortable position, he sat up to lean against the dusty wall behind him. The movement caused the plain green cloak cast about his shoulders to slip off; no wings emblazoned the back as he examined it in his hands._

'_So..the kid wakes,' a gruff voice commented from nearby. Levi started and as his hazy vision cleared he realised where he was. Across from him, through the tangle of tables and chairs he could see the bar where he had hidden from the man who had raised him and then tried to kill him. Not far from him, dressed in that classic long coat and cowboy styled hat, the very man slouched in a high backed seat, one booted foot propped on the sticky surface of the table in front of him and a small glass of neat liquor in one hand as he looked to the captain on the floor in the corner. _

_Levi shook his head, the dark strands of his hair tickling his lashes as he cast his memory back to how he could have gotten here. A sudden flash of light exploded in his mind's eye followed by a sound to render a person almost deaf: the explosion in the back of a horse drawn cart that had tossed him like a rag doll into the air and into oblivion before he had even hit the ground. He barely remembered any pain; it had all happened too quick. _

_Was this it then, he wondered dully. Had he finally been taken from the battle? He looked about the dimly lit bar, his personal hell by the looks of it, and turned back to his uncle, still watching him as he swirled the honey coloured liquid in his glass._

'_You know,' said Levi dryly, 'of all the people I'd have expected to greet me here, you would have been one of my last choices.' Kenny chuckled and raised the drink to him._

'_I hear ya there kid. Can't blame ya neither. But for most of them it woulda made this too hard. I'm a neutral party see, so it's only fair that it be me.'_

_Levi narrowed his eyes and gripped the cloth still clutched between his fingers. The lack of the scouts emblem made him feel lost. In life it had become his identity, everything he was. Without it he went back to being a thug from the underground; a street urchin abandoned with no true future before him._

'_Tell me boy, who would you see if you had the choice?' His uncle asked. He tipped his chair back to rest against the wall, the brim of his hat now pulled low to shade one side of his face. His question met silence. The captain on the floor didn't know the answer. His squad perhaps? What could he say to them though; he had led them blindly at Erwin's orders through the forest of giant trees and ultimately to their deaths when they'd been forced to fight Annie and betrayed the trust they had given to him freely because he had placed his own in the Commander. The number of times he had actually held Petra's broken frame in his dreams could not be counted anymore._

_It would be the same if he asked for Farlan and Isobel. How could he face his old steadfast friend with his blond hair, towering height and carefree smile, so at odds with his serious companion. And little Isobel, chirpy and annoying and full of life. Isobel, who had seen him as a brother from the first day they had met. They too had fallen, because Erwin wanted Levi, needed his talents beyond the wall; and they had been dragged into the conflict as a result._

_Perhaps he could settle for Erwin himself. The two of them could sit here side by side, with a drink at last and reminisce over every friend they had ever lost between them, over a rivalry turned to close friendship; and Levi could thank him, because no matter what had been asked of him, he could only ever be grateful now to the man that had given him a cloak and freedom beyond the walls, a purpose to follow, a meaning to his life._

'_Any regrets kid?' Kenny asked then, softly, as though he could read each and every one of his nephew's thoughts. _

'_Just one,' Levi admitted after a moment, 'no matter what Erwin said, I will always regret leaving two friends behind to titans in a never can know the consequences of your actions fully until its done, I get that. Even if I had stayed with them there's no guarantee they would have been safe. But their chances would have been higher, that I do know.'_

'_Y'know, I have one too,' said Kenny thoughtfully, 'I regret walkin' away from you the way I did. I don't mean that I shoulda stayed. Our destinies always were meant to be separate. You were your mother's son and you had to find your own way. But I shoulda explained that before I left you alone.'_

_Surprised by his uncle's confession, Levi finally shifted from his position and rose unsteadily to his feet. He felt thoroughly exhausted and it took him a moment to register the clothes he was wearing: threadbare trousers, a shirt that hung loose from his slighter figure and a worn fleece jacket that he recognised as one Kenny had given him as a child that had somehow lasted to adulthood before he'd finally thrown it away. One glance to his reflection in the paned glass windows of the tavern showed a teenaged boy with ruffled dark hair and haunted eyes, his hand automatically resting on the hilt of a knife thrust through his belt. _

_He scraped the chair across from Kenny out, hung the cloak over the back and settled on the edge, folding his arms on the tabletop as he did so. The long sleeves of his jacket would shield from the dirt. Up close, his uncle's skin seemed as smooth and unblemished as his own, free of the creases and wrinkles that had marred him in later life. Instead he looked like he had the day he had found Levi huddled half starved in his mother's room…his mother...why hadn't he thought of her when asked who he might like to see? Kenny cut across that thought almost instantly, again with that unnerving ability to pry into the captain's mind._

'_If she had come to you, you would let go for sure boy.'_

_He pushed the glass across the table in offering but Levi refused. After all, only moments ago he had been contemplating a drink with Erwin and no one else. If the old Commander of the Survey Corps wasn't here to share with his captain, then Levi's underlying instincts suggested he wasn't yet free to relax like Erwin._

'_I don't understand,' he said sharply to Kenny, referring to the statement his uncle had just made. Kenny sighed and closed his eyes, one hand now draped lazily across his propped knee, the other hanging down by his side._

'_Kid, you're lucky,' he said simply, 'you've got a choice to make here, though if you ask me there ain't no contest. I didn't raise you to quit before you were done. Seeing her or anyone else you were ever close too would be too painful and would stop you from thinking this decision through clearly. That's why I'm here to give ya the message though I think you're getting the idea on ya own. 'Course, I know how hard this sorta thing is for you.' He flipped his hat up just a fraction and peeked through half-lidded eyes to watch the boy's response. Levi had clenched his hands into fists and, if it was even possible in this place, he seemed paler than usual in the dull lighting. He had never liked making choices._

'_Here if ya need me but ultimately this is on you,' Kenny added. _

'_On me….' The captain murmured to his whitened knuckles. Then he looked up to his uncle, his stormy blue eyes furious against Kenny's unnatural calm. '_You_ want to help me? Why? You tried to kill me.'_

'_I did,' Kenny admitted, almost mournfully, 'what would my sister say? But you and I were on opposite sides and I wasn't prepared to let some brat stand in the way of my dream, even if I did raise him. You weren't mine anymore anyhow kid. You'd given your loyalty completely to that damn scouts commander. And I was glad, because you'd found your freedom. I hadn't found mine and that made you my enemy.'_

_He caught up the glass and downed the liquor while Levi fell silent, lost to thought. He did understand why he was here. This place between worlds. Kenny was telling him he still had a way back, that he was not lost yet if he still wanted to find his way. His choice whether to live or die. What did he want? What would his comrades want from him? What would Erwin say, or his mother even? Despite being so young, he had never forgotten his mother's face, her silky black hair that he had inherited, her blue eyes brighter than his own. Even now he could understand how her simple feminine beauty had won so many admirers in that damned place, one of whom had finally taken her away from him. She had never been free as her son had been. Would she scold him for throwing that away? Erwin probably would. For that and for abandoning the people who still needed him. There was barely a soldier out there who could match him for strength and endurance. Kenny was right, he could hardly quit before he was done..._

_Sudden realisation from those words drove him to his feet in that moment and startled the man before him who nearly toppled from his chair._

'_Zeke. He's still alive isn't he?' Distressed as his uncle merely nodded in confirmation Levi turned back to the window to hide the guilt on his face as he thought of the beast titan running rampant while he was here, on the verge of death, threatening to slip away and leave his companions to face it alone. Erwin would never forgive him for that. His instincts had been right after all: he wasn't done yet._

'_I..swore an oath,' he breathed, 'I can't break that. I can't let him down. He-he held up his end of the bargain...how can I do any less?'_

_He braced one hand against the glass panes and bent his head as tears he would never have shed in real life sprang unbidden to his eyes and slipped down his cheeks. He winced then at the sudden sting to his skin; as though the salt stung a thousand different cuts across his face. Without warning, agony flared up through two of the fingers on his right hand and he dropped to his knees as pain flared up throughout his entire body. His shocked cry only raised a sad smile from the uncle in his chair as he watched the boy, now a full grown man before him, shaking from head to toe, dressed in his full scouts uniform with the Wings of Freedom stitched on the back of his tan jacket and the green cloak held loose in his fist no longer plain._

'_I'd say that's choice made and a good one too,' he said as the captain's form began to shimmer in the hazy light and fade before his eyes._

'_I won't regret this,' Levi gasped from the floor, 'just please tell Erwin that next time I end up here, he had better show himself so I can tell him personally not to hold this over me, because I will fulfil this damned oath!'_

_Kenny grinned. How could he not at his nephew's courage. 'It's a done deal kid!'_

_Levi sucked in a breath, closed his eyes as his senses spun out of control and left him dizzied; as cold air slapped his exposed skin he snapped them open again…._

'Levi?!

As her old friend shuddered into life without warning and opened his eyes, Hange came to his side immediately, stunned breathless. Since their flight through the river, she had lost her pursuers and finally found shelter in the tiny crook of a rocky outcrop. Unable to risk a fire, the best she had been able to do to try and keep him warm as he lay still was to wrap her own heavy coat over his cloak. He needed serious help and care that just couldn't be found in their situation and she had nothing of her own with which to tend him. The hand now missing two fingers had been wrapped in strips of material torn from her shirt to stop the bleeding and the river had washed his cuts but there was nothing more she could do. To see him awake with the stakes currently against him was a miracle, even if a little heart breaking when she saw the clouded colouring of his right iris. The blow to his face had left him blinded in one eye. He blinked several times as he registered this change to his vision and cocked a brow to the commander before him.

'Well Hange, you and I might actually have something in common now.' His voice was rasped and thin, worn from exhaustion but to hear it laced with his classic style of sarcasm brought a relief beyond words.

'What would Erwin think if he could see us now,' she replied as she pressed her back to the cool rock next to him.

'He'd point to his arm and tell us to deal with it; worse things have happened to our comrades,' Levi stated, deadpan. Hange smiled. He was probably right. Then she sighed.

'You've come back to possibly our most difficult task yet,' she told him. He nodded.

'I know. Zeke didn't have the grace to finish himself when he set off the spear. The score I have to settle with him now is for trying to kill me off before I could keep my promise to Erwin.'

He pulled the heavy layers tighter about himself, tired enough for once in his life to fall asleep instantly, and in need of decent rest to begin the long recovery before he could see his ultimatum through. Before this battle, he would now need to learn to fight with one sword and half of his vision.

'I'm glad that of all people, you've come back,' Hange said softly as she watched his steady descent into sleep, 'I don't know if that's cruel but you are still needed in this world.'

'The simple fact of the matter Hange,' he murmured wearily in response as he closed bruised eyelids and tipped his dark head back to rest against the wall, 'is that I'm not done yet.'


End file.
